Improving nutrition components in medical and dental school curriculums

A non-traditional approach to the identification and improvement of nutrition components in the curricula of schools of medicine and dentistry is described. The approach invokes 3 factors: (1) development of a nutrition curriculum guide detailing information on what is currently being taught; (2) comparison of what is actually being taught with a set of ideal objectives to identify redundancies or omissions; and (3) organizing faculty efforts in courses throughout the 4-years curriculum to aid students in integrating nutrition-related topics from the various disciplines. (wz)